


In The Gutter Where We Found It

by ArgylePirateWD



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Bloodplay, Darkfic, Dubious Consent, Dubiously Consensual Torture, Dysfunctional Relationships, Hate Sex, Knifeplay, M/M, Post-Finale, Rope Bondage, Snuff, Temporarily Fatal Sex, Temporary Character Death, dirtybadwrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:42:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgylePirateWD/pseuds/ArgylePirateWD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I want to see if you're as pretty when you come as you are when you die. You are so <em>very</em> pretty when you die."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Gutter Where We Found It

"You have no idea how much I love seeing you like this," Adam says, voice flat, detached, unreadable. "You're so beautiful."

He drags the long, slender blade down Henry's chest, barely touching, a trail of blood and burning skin following in his wake. Henry sucks in a sharp breath that turns into a groan, part pained, part not, and he stares at his reflection in the mirror.

 _I'm not supposed to like this_ , he thinks, meeting his own dark, dark eyes in the mirror. Not supposed to like the firm hand on his thigh, the cold glint of the knife in the golden lamplight, the harsh bite of rope on his wrists and ankles. The red. So much red. The walls are red, paint reminiscent of fresh arterial spray. The silk sheets on the bed in the corner look like crime scenes, the dark velvet chair beneath him matches the blood coagulating on his skin.

"It's your favorite color, isn't it?" Henry rasps. "Red."

"I don't have a favorite," Adam says. "It's just the only color that makes me feel anything."

The blade goes deeper this time, trailing around Henry's scar, wringing another moan from Henry's throat. "God," he gasps, stomach going tight with want and dread, and he tries to squirm away, but there's nowhere to go, nowhere he wants to go. So he watches the blood well up on his skin, transfixed by the slow, wet trickle sliding down his chest.

Face impassive, Adam drags his knife like an artist's brush across Henry's skin, painting an intricate pattern with pain. Like some macabre tattoo, dark lines swirl over Henry's sweat-soaked, heaving chest, each cut placed with care, or perhaps love. Not love for Henry, certainly, but for something else, a complex, disturbing love only Adam understands.

This is wrong. And yet his cock throbs, desperate for touch. His skin begs for the next slice from the knife. He finds himself leaning into it, eager for more, even as he says, "What do you want?" his own voice barely audible over the deafening sound of his heart. "Why are you doing this?"

Adam pulls the knife away, and he tilts his head, studying Henry, his keen gaze as tangible as the knife. "You think this is about revenge, don't you? That I'm doing this because of that little stunt you pulled with that needle." He shakes his head, then leans in. "You are such a clever young man, and yet you know nothing."

His lips are soft against Henry's, smooth and disconcertingly gentle as he kisses him. Henry's breath catches, and Adam chuckles. "Is anything between us ever that simple?"

"No," Henry says, and swallows. "It's not."

"Exactly." Adam flicks a nipple with the tip of the blade, a bright shock of pain—Christ, it hurts. Henry bites his lip hard to keep from crying out. "I'm doing this because I want to. And you didn't say no."

"I should have."

"But you didn't, and you haven't. And I am glad." Adam draws a shallow, diagonal cut from shoulder to sternum, then its reversed twin on the other side, mimicking the start of the familiar Y-incision Henry uses every day. "This is the most arousing thing I have seen in a _very_ long time."

Adam pulls the knife away again, and Henry whimpers, missing its cruel presence, until he's silenced by another kiss so tender it could be mistaken for affectionate. He leans into it, too, eager for the taste of Adam, the thrill of Adam's tongue sliding against his, the breathtaking flare in his veins as lips slide on lips. Kissing is an art, one of Henry's favorites, and Henry is more than willing to partake in the work of a master, even though he's terrified.

When he pulls away, Adam runs the flat of the blade down Henry's belly, caresses the soft flesh with the knife's blunt side. It hits Henry then, how vulnerable he is, how trapped. Completely naked, in body and mind, completely at Adam's dubious mercy.

"I could do anything to you right now," Adam whispers, words hot against Henry's lips, and he lets the blade nick Henry's skin. Henry's breath hitches. "And you'd enjoy it. Because I make you feel alive in a way nobody else can."

"You're wrong."

"Am I?" Adam replaces the knife with his fingertips, presses down on Henry's abdomen, examines him with clinical precision. "I know exactly what's inside here," he continues. "Exactly how it feels when someone plunges a knife like this into any of these organs—the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the bowels." He palpates over each as he lists them. "How it feels to be sliced up and splayed open for the entire world to see. The pain, the fear. How long it takes to die from any of it. And so do you, don't you?"

"Please," Henry rasps, but he's not sure what he's begging for. _Please stop? Please touch me? Please kill me?_ "Adam, please..."

"You know what else I know? You. You're enjoying this, aren't you? You _want_ me to cut you open, to see who you really are in ways no one else ever has." Henry refuses to respond, and Adam slides his hand down, wraps his fingers around Henry's length, and Henry moans. "It's all right, Henry," he says, dragging his thumb over the head of Henry's length, teasing the foreskin, then slides his fingers down, and up again, no hesitancy in his touch. It's too good for something so wrong. "You can tell me you like it. I'm the least judgmental person you'll ever meet."

Henry recognizes his own words—words he's never said to Adam—and a chill runs through him. He shivers. "You're insane."

"And you're the one who said 'yes' tonight." Adam cuts again, a long, shallow line from chest to navel, and Henry hisses. The sick thrill of pain and fear is intoxicating, addictive, hated and wanted all at once. "Tell me something, Henry: What does that say about you?"

What indeed.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

 _There's no other rush like it_ , echoes in Henry's head, over the harsh rhythm of his pulse.  _Taking a life. It's thrilling. Tell me I'm wrong._

"Mm-hm." Adam presses the tip of the knife in Henry's navel and squeezes Henry's shaft. Henry gasps, then holds his breath, braces himself for the agony of a stab in the gut. Waits. Waits for the sharp point to slice through him. The blinding pain. The blood. His world narrows to the knifepoint, to the uncaring hardness against his belly, to the blade's painful promise.

The knife sinks in, ever so slightly, piercing Henry's skin. He clenches his teeth. Waits for the pain to get worse. Waits.

"But I will get you off first, at least," Adam says, blade retreating, and Henry tries to catch his breath. "Think of this as an experiment. I know how much you enjoy those." Adam draws on Henry's skin with the knife again, absently stroking Henry's cock between cuts. "I want to see if you're as pretty when you come as you are when you die. You are so  _very_  pretty when you die."

"How—" Henry swallows down his nausea, and tries to meet Adam's disaffected eyes. Fails. "How are you going to do it?"

"You'll see. Although, it's kind of a shame that I'll be destroying all this hard work when I'm done. But we'll do this again, won't we."

It isn't a question, but Henry says, "No," anyway, while some black corner of his mind whispers, _Yes_. "This won't happen again."

Shaking his head, Adam heaves a disappointed sigh. "Remember, Henry—we've got all the time in the world. Who knows what will happen next?" Adam cuts deep, deeper, too deep almost, the wound bright-hot and terrifying. Henry cries out. It's too far, too much, not enough. Adam lets go of Henry's length, slicks his fingers red with Henry's blood, dragging a more subtle, stinging pain to the surface of Henry's skin in the wake of the worst of the hurt. "What you'll let me do to you, what you'll do to me..."

Gritting his teeth, Henry says, "I'm not interested in being part of your screwed-up—" and breaks off with a small, "Oh, God, yes," as Adam takes him in hand again, stoking the burn coiling hot and wrong and perfect in the pit of his belly.

Adam lets out a quiet laugh as Henry arches into his touch. "Look at you," he says, rubbing Henry's length with fingers gone tacky with drying blood. "I knew you'd like this. Not as prim and proper as you'd like everyone to think you are, are you? Not as sane. Admit it, Henry—you are just as fucked-up as the rest of us."

The profanity is another hot and painful punch in the gut. _Fucked_. Such a crude, simple word, not even sexual in this context, and yet. And yet. "Adam," Henry gasps, his fingers clenching into fists, his toes curling and cramping, and he's close, so painfully, terribly close to the edge. "Adam..."

"Take another look at yourself," Adam says, moving behind him, and he grabs Henry's chin and holds up his head. "What do you see?"

Henry does as he's told, meets his own wild, watering eyes in the mirror again, traces the dark rivulets on his skin with his gaze. Blood everywhere, his skin stained the color of Adam's insanity. It's sickening. It's wrong. It makes his head swim, his stomach churn, his cock _ache_. With every harsh and rapid breath, Henry's chest heaves and falls, the wet lines on his torso stretch and shrink. His bitten lip glistens with spit, his body shines with sweat and blood, so much blood everywhere, but not enough to kill him, nowhere near enough to kill him. It's madness, all of it. Pure madness.

This madness isn't him, can't be him. And it is. With a dizzying rush of horror, Henry realizes it is.

It's strange how that makes him feel so alive.

"What do you see?" Adam repeats. "Who do you see?"

"Blood," Henry says, and arches into Adam's hand, desperate and ready and needy. "Me. You."

"Now, isn't that a perfect summary of our relationship? Blood and you and me." Adam leans in, and his breath is hot and damp against Henry's ear as he says, "I think I've almost proven my hypothesis." He nips Henry's earlobe. "Come on, Henry. Show me."

With a deft twist of Adam's wrist, Henry comes, letting out a guttural yell as orgasm takes hold. He loses himself, eyes slamming shut as he surrenders to the rush of endorphins and sparking neurons.

And then there's agony, the brutal, blinding shock of the knife plunging into his chest. His shout cuts off with a breathless gurgle. _Punctured lung_ , Henry thinks, and Christ, it hurts, hurts, _hurts_. Everything he's felt since Adam tied him up pales in comparison to this, to the white hot pain, the insanity of the knife in his lung.

Adam pulls out the blade, and Henry gags at the wet, sucking sound until he can't gag. He can't breathe, can't _breathe_. He struggles for much-needed air, tries to take in precious oxygen between ragged, wracking coughs, his mouth filling with a familiar metallic taste.

 _Stop fighting_ , Henry tells himself, but his body refuses to obey, determined to stay alive even if it hurts. And, God, it hurts. It hurts so much, and he can't breathe, needs to breathe, can't breathe through the pain and the failing lung. He pants, and it hurts. He tries to calm himself, and it hurts. His body sags, growing weaker and weaker, and it hurts. He's dying, and it hurts. His body doesn't know his deaths are temporary, doesn't care. All it wants is to live, in spite of the horrendous pain.

"I pity you," Adam says, but his voice doesn't show it. "Look at how hard you're try to stay alive even though you know you're going to fail. It's pathetic."

"Not trying," Henry chokes out, slumping over an arm of the chair. The heat of lust is fading, replaced by bitter cold as he loses blood. "End it. Please."

"Shh," Adam says, and strokes Henry's cheek with warm fingers, caressing Henry's cooling skin. "Look at yourself, Henry. Open your eyes."

Unable to resist, Henry forces his eyes open, and barely recognizes the pale, bleeding man—the near-corpse—in the mirror as himself.

"You really are beautiful when you die."

Another white hot flash of pain cuts through Henry's chest.

Everything stops.

"The only rush that can compare to taking a life," Adam says, voice growing more distant with every word, "is losing one. Until next time, Henry. Send Abraham my regards."

Memories fill Henry's mind in a blur that takes seconds or years, he can't tell, can never tell. Cold and filthy water floods his nose and mouth and throat, and he's coughing and choking as he bursts through the surface of the river.

Disoriented and overwhelmed, he sinks back under. Struggles to reach the surface again. Fights the water with flailing limbs and waning strength. His stubborn body wants to languish in the post-coital haze of this death, is weighed down by the lingering memories of pain and breathless weakness and an afterglow that never came. Henry forces his arms to cooperate, forces his legs to help propel him back up until he reaches the top. He coughs and coughs, until he can suck air into his starving lungs, perfect and wonderful air.

Focused on slow, lengthy breaths, Henry treads water. _In. Out._ he repeats to himself, clutching the phantom ache his chest. _In. Out._ Adam is miles away. Adam can't touch him now.

Henry loathes the part of himself that wants Adam to touch him again.

As Henry comes back to himself, he shakes the water from his face and looks toward the shore. A familiar figure is up ahead, standing near a familiar car. Henry exhales, relief washing over him like the water. Abe is waiting.


End file.
